Countdown
by pokemon fan 98
Summary: 4x20 . Jemma has the nightmare every night, always in a countdown. Three. Fitz is the LMD. Two. She stabs the Fitz LMD. One. Fitz kills Agnes, and tries to kill her. Whenever she closes her eyes she has this nightmare, and nothing seems to help her. Even Fitz can only help minimally. Then again, she hasn't told him the first two parts of the dream. The beginning of the countdown.


Countdown: Jemma has nightmares after recent events, and always the same sequence of events. _Three._ Fitz is the LMD. _Two_. She stabs the Fitz LMD. _One._ Fitz kills Agnes, and then tries to kill her. Every night, she sees these things. The countdown never stops. Maybe talking with Fitz would help.

 _Three._

Jemma looked at the monitor and saw the warning flashing across it: LMD Detected. LMD Detected, below an image of she and Fitz walking into the room. Which meant one of them was an LMD. She grabbed a gun and pointed it at Fitz, her hand shaking slightly but her aim steady nonetheless.

"Jemma, what are you doing?" He asked, holding his hands up.

"It's one of us, Fitz." She said. She felt the sob rising in her throat. "It's one of us!"

"I'm not the one holding a gun." He said, looking at her with grief in his eyes. "This always happens to us, to one of us!"

She wondered if he was right, and she was the LMD. He looked so upset. But she knew he would act this way if he was really the LMD. She had to be sure. So she told him to prove to her that he wasn't, by cutting his wrist.

She heard the sharp intake of breath when he sliced through his skin, and saw the blood start flowing out. "That's a lot of blood." He said, his voice weak.

"Did you slice the artery?" she exclaimed, drawing closer to him. If he was fine, and had just done that… concern drove away any other worries. Until she reached his side, and he swung around with something heavy. She crumpled to the ground, losing consciousness.

 _Two._

She woke up with an incredibly foggy head, to see Fitz standing in front of her. "I just need you awake for the neural mapping, and then you can sleep for the rest." He said. Her Fitz. Who she had to remember wasn't her Fitz, but an LMD.

She fell out of the chair, her limbs heavy, and started crawling towards a hammer. She couldn't let him put her into the Framework. She had to escape, to get her Fitz and the others back. She swung the hammer at the chain, and Fitz crashed to the ground under the weight of the metal frame that had been suspended above them. She seized the opportunity, grabbing a knife and crawling to him, plunging it into his chest. He just watched her for a second, and then there was fear in his blue eyes, and betrayal, as he yelled "no, no, Jemma, it's me, no, don't do this!" She was shaking, but she didn't stop, and a second later his expression wiped clear, his hand reaching out to grab her neck. She stabbed deeper, with a bit more urgency, and he released her. He had just gone back to saying her name when she couldn't take anymore, and drove the knife into a juncture at his neck. There was an electric spark, and then he was still, his eyes staring ahead. She saw the blankness and threw the knife away from her, unable to hold it after what it had done. She crawled away from Fitz, unable to look at him, feeling herself start to shake, worried she would fall apart as she started sobbing.

 _One._

"He won't kill her." She said to Ward. "Fitz isn't capable of murder."

Ward lowered his gun, and Jemma watched Fitz from the bushes, tear tracks still fresh on her cheeks from her begging Ward not to kill him. She knew Fitz wouldn't pull the trigger.

And then he did. The sound of the gunshot felt like an impact itself, as far as she was concerned. She stood up, stepping out from the bushes and yelling his name, then screaming as Agnes hit the ground and he turned to face her. Fitz, but not her Fitz. It couldn't be.

Time seemed to skip, and she faced him in the warehouse, feet from the portal back to the real world. He accused her of murdering his father, and she told him it was an accident. He didn't seem to believe her. She watched his every movement, and his expression when he said "you mean nothing to me" was so cold it physically hurt.

Then she actually felt pain, when he shot her in the leg to get her to kneel. He pressed his gun to the top of her head, telling her to say something that she would never say. She wouldn't lie and say he meant nothing to her. He meant everything.

She heard a gunshot and her whole body flinched.

Jemma woke up with a terrified yell, bolting upright and moving her hand in front of her defensively. She was panting, covered in sweat, her eyes wide. She looked around the room, but it was empty of any of the threats she had just dreamed of. Fitz lay beside her, deep asleep. She looked at him carefully, watching the movement of his chest as he breathed. She drew the covers back from his chest, feeling it. No scars. He hadn't been stabbed. Because he wasn't the LMD. He started to wake at her touch, so she drew her hand back, placing the covers over him again.

She leaned against her headboard and closed her eyes, inhaling shakily. She couldn't escape the nightmares. Every night, every time she closed her eyes, for the past few weeks. And always in that sequence. _Three._ Fitz proves to be the LMD. _Two_. She stabs the Fitz LMD. _One._ She sees Fitz kill Agnes, and then try to kill her before Radcliffe had thrown him through the portal.

Her hands went to the back of her head, her fingers gently applying pressure as she tried to steady her breathing. She felt like she was losing her mind, replaying those moments over and over, every night. _Three two one. Three two one_. She'd managed to keep from falling apart while things had still been happening, but now that they were all out of the Framework and things were calm… now she had time to think about it again. But nightmares weren't dealing with it. They were merciless reliving of scenes that had shaken her to her core individually. Gathered all together in a nightmare, the impact was three times as strong.

She always woke feeling shattered, and Fitz being right next to her was both good and bad. It was good when she relived the part where she had stabbed him, because she could make sure he was alive and well. It was bad when she remembered him shooting Agnes, and seconds from shooting her, and felt scared of him.

That part usually only lasted a few seconds, before her rationality came back to her, but it felt like a betrayal nonetheless. She knew Fitz would never intentionally hurt her in his right mind. He'd basically been a different person in that world.

She exhaled a final time before opening her eyes, her respiration under control, her pulse returning to normal. She shifted so she lay beside Fitz again and scooted closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder and grabbing his arm. Contact soothed her, she found, after she had composed herself. Contact before she had calmed herself only made it worse.

Fitz knew she was having nightmares, but he didn't know about the first two parts. She hadn't told him. _Three. Two_. Those had been an LMD. An LMD with his face, his voice. His memories. She sighed as she recalled how it had brought up marriage, and felt tears gather behind her closed eyes. How could she tell Fitz that she had killed an LMD version of him?

Besides, she knew he was having his own trouble sleeping. He was completely wracked with guilt over his actions. She knew that each time he woke up because of her nightmares, he felt that guilt tenfold.

His arm moved, and she felt his hand cover hers. So he was awake.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

She didn't want to lie, but telling the truth wasn't an appealing option either. She nodded against him.

His other hand came up and touched her cheek, caressing it gently. She couldn't hide it when he did that. The tears leaked out of her eyes and she pressed her lips together to try to contain the trembling sob that was suddenly rising.

Fitz had repositioned in an instant, wrapping his arms fully round her and nestling her into him. He smoothed her hair in slow strokes, holding her tight with his other hand. Jemma didn't open her eyes while she cried; she didn't need to. She felt him supporting her. She willed herself to stop as quickly as she could, hating to appear weak. It was only a short attack this time, thankfully. When she swallowed the last of her sobs she breathed out, backing away from him so she could see his face. He let her move a few inches away but kept touching her, and when she looked at his face he brushed the back of his finger under her eye, wiping away a final tear.

"I'm sorry." She said, her voice a bit distorted.

"Don't apologize for having a nightmare."

"But it's every night, Fitz."

"You've been through a simulated Hell." He said gently. "All the stress that had been building up, it's not surprising it's taking its toll now that we've got time to think."

"Are you okay?" she asked him.

"About the same." He said. That was what he kept saying. Nothing she told him could shake him of that guilt he bore. He didn't deserve to feel that much guilt. She knew he needed time to forgive himself, but in her eyes he was already forgiven. Now he was just beating himself up, reopening the wound before it could finish healing. "Same nightmare?" he asked.

"Yes."

She saw his jaw tense as he looked at the ceiling. "I hate that I did those things to you. That I killed Agnes, and almost killed you…"

She knew then she had to tell him the whole nightmare. Maybe it would let him start to forgive himself, if he knew he wasn't the only one to do something so scary. "Fitz," she said, "I haven't told you the whole of the dream."

He looked at her again, his blue eyes widened.

She couldn't look at him while she said this. "I had a confrontation with your LMD, before Daisy and I hacked into the Framework."

"You've told me that, Jem." He said gently. "I know it tried to put you into the Framework, but you got away."

She closed her eyes. "Yes, but I haven't told you how. I had to kill the LMD." She swallowed. "Fitz, I stabbed it so many times before it deactivated. And all the while it was looking at me with your face, pleading with me to stop with your voice." She took a breath, realizing her voice was shaking. "I had to, or it would have put me in the Framework, but it was you!"

She didn't open her eyes, not wanting to see his look of horror.

"Jemma." He said softly. "You did what you had to. It wasn't me. You knew that when it happened. I'm fine."

She opened her eyes and looked at him. "But I keep seeing it. Reliving the movement, seeing that betrayed look in your eyes. Fitz, I feel so guilty."

He sat up and took her hand. "Jemma, listen to me. I'm right here. You didn't do anything wrong. You did everything right, actually. If anyone should feel guilty, it's me, because I held a gun to your head."

She saw the vulnerability in his gaze, and felt the gentleness in his touch. "It still felt real." She said.

"Because it was designed to." He said, reassuringly. He looked past her for a moment, in thought. "That's why you check my chest." He said quietly.

She looked at him, startled. "You're usually asleep for that."

"I know you need time to gather yourself." He said.

She realized what this meant, and a feeling that wasn't fear or guilt washed over her; something that actually warmed her. He was awake every time she screamed or started awake. He knew every time she had a nightmare. And every time he let her go through her own process, to let her compose herself before pretending to wake up and help her. She sat up and touched her lips to his, softly at first and then with growing intensity. They hadn't done this is a little while. She needed more contact than holding hands.

He melded his body to hers, kissing her back enthusiastically and with growing passion. She touched the back of his warm neck, and his chest, right over his heart, feeling its steady beating beneath her palm. He held her to him, running his fingers over her shoulders and back and not letting her slip away. Not that she would want to. She hated even separating her lips from his to breathe.

This was doing more than anything to convince her that he was safe. She hoped it was doing the same for him. They were both here, with their minds intact (stressed, perhaps, but fully their own), and they were together. That was all that mattered, really.

The countdown of memories flew out of her mind, and she kissed him a little bit harder, actually overwhelmed by the warm buzz that had driven away the memories.

Judging from his reaction, Fitz's memories flew away too.


End file.
